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Technology Stocks : HWP -- Hewlett Packard -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elwood P. Dowd who wrote (3917)	12/15/2001 5:19:30 AM
From: BelowTheCrowd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4722

I agree with Welch. Walter Hewlett is an idiot and shouldn't be on any board. He missed the key meeting to play in a band, then after missing all the important discussion voted for it despite the fact that he had serious reservations, and in the end changed his mind and led the opposition to it. I don't necessarily disagree with the guy, but he should have been there to make his stand up front, then stood behind it. In many ways, he's symptomatic of HWP overall. In close to four years there, I saw this kind of thing happen endlessly. Meetings would take place and decisions would be made, then somebody would show up, claim "I couldn't make it to that meeting, we have to re-open the discussion because I disagree." When I was at Intel, I saw a fairly senior manager fired for trying to pull that kind of crap. The message from the very top was very clear: If you can't be bothered to show up or at least send a representative to important meetings, you forfeit the opportunity to have a say. If you can't go along with decisions once they are properly made, you forfeit your job. HWP never was very good at making or enforcing decisions, and Hewlett takes it to an absurd level. Note, I have no problem with shareholders (including the foundations, wall street, etc.) deciding to vote against something put to them by the board. That's the right of every shareholder and a good board would have considered their likely reaction in advance and not put something before them that was bound to fail. But for a board member to vote one way then lead the opposition to what he voted for is ridiculous. mg